Hi!
I’ve been following your blog for a while – I find naming trends very interesting to watch, though I have no plans to have and name kids any time soon. Recently me and my boyfriend were discussing naming, and it raised… some questions. Essentially, the conversation started as ‘using nouns and adjectives as names can turn out sounding silly’, which I think is often true – I showed him the letter about Felony Fever Vice and Lethal Cashmere.
I thought we agreed on this. But turns out my boyfriend also heavily disapproves of such outlandish names as Lily, Grace, Hope, Ruby, because they are “not names”. I will admit I died inside slightly when he told me he’d never name a child Rose because it’s a stripper name.
So I guess this is two things. One, I think it really would be an interesting discussion to see when people think a noun can become a name (even the names we consider to have no English meaning name now, had meanings in their original setting..)
And two, would be great to have a naming expert confirm whether or not names like Mercy are actually names!Thanks!
You and I and everyone else including your boyfriend all know the answer to this question, which is that Lily, Grace, Hope, Ruby, Rose, and Mercy are all in fact names. This is obvious and provable and not up for discussion unless we all get very, very high first.
The actual question here is why your boyfriend is taking this silly stance. It would indeed be interesting to have a discussion about why some words are also names and some are not, and who decides, and what the difference is. But first there needs to be general acceptance of reality by all discussion partners. A discussion based on false premises was a little bit fun in college, but that was the era of thinking that toying with reality made us sound smart.
Here is something I find myself less and less willing to deal with as I get older: people who are being argumentative/difficult for the sake of being argumentative/difficult. That’s what your boyfriend is doing to you right now. He’s basically saying, “I’m going to make an absurd claim we both know to be untrue. Now YOU put in the work to prove to me what we BOTH ALREADY KNOW TO BE TRUE, while I sit back and enjoy it!” Is this work you want to willingly take on? Is this work ANY of us want to willingly take on? Do any of us find it a valuable use of our time to persuade him of something he already knows to be true? Wouldn’t it be more fun to do pretty much anything else?
Like, if he prefers not to use names that are also words, that is an absolutely legitimate preference. He can say, “Hm, no, I find I generally don’t like names that are also words.” This might be sad for someone he’s naming children with, but it’s not WRONG. But to instead say those names are NOT IN FACT NAMES? Or that Rose, an ancient and lovely name used for many women in a vast assortment of professions, is “a stripper name”? He is playing some sort of game, and it’s not a game I would want to play if I were you.
If he is a good, smart, quality guy who is just wrongly thinking he’s being super sassy and funny right now with this, you should be able to stop it by flipping it: say to him, “What if I were to say that [several names you know he likes] are ‘not names’ just because I don’t like them? You would say that was ridiculous, and you’d be right. Can we stick to saying we like certain names or don’t like certain names?”
I also think it’s possible that this is just not a hypothetical conversation he’s able/willing to have right now. If kids are not anywhere on the horizon, he may be treating the whole thing much more lightly than he would if the two of you had a baby on the way. If he’s not using reality-denying statements in other discussions you have with him, then this might be nothing more than him playing around with something that doesn’t seem serious/relevant to him yet.
I’m with Swistle–the boyfriend knows good and well that (at least) Lily, Rose, and Grace are absolutely names. In my own experience, they are so very much names that when I hear them they no longer evoke the images/concepts of flowers and virtue, but rather the faces of all the people I know and have seen on TV who share those names. Names that are ultrafeminine and that have the potential for sassy irony are more likely to get turned into stripper aliases, but that doesn’t mean they’re not names.
However–is there any chance you’re paraphrasing here, and that the boyfriend didn’t give those specific examples but rather took a general stance against the Noun Names category altogether? Is he by any chance older? I’m finding it really tough to imagine a 25-year-old thinking Lily isn’t a name when there are hundreds of Lilys occupying every currently living generation…but on the other hand, I just named my son after Agent Mulder from a certain hit 90s TV show, and the overwhelming reaction by my older relatives is that his name is not a name. “The kids these days don’t use names anymore,” my grandmother has taken to saying. “They name their children after things.” That’s what she tells herself to get used to the idea of babies named River, Sage, [my son’s name], etc.–names that didn’t exist when she was of childbearing age (but that are still names, by definition, since they refer to people!).
Good luck with your boyfriend! Two of my exes vetoed Agent Mulder’s name as a possible baby name, and my husband took months to convince but eventually came around (and has since forgotten that it wasn’t his idea).
I am immediately wondering if your boyfriend takes these ridiculous positions a lot and enjoys the arguments that arise from them? I would find that harder to live with than a difference of opinion on what makes a good name.
I posted that comment from my phone, and didn’t realize I was in the threading area. It wasn’t actually a response to Shannon (who made an excellent point).
Oh, Agent Mulder’s name is fantastic!
I do agree that older generations are a lot more um…strict regarding what they consider to be “real names.” There just wasn’t as much variety in naming back in the day. But your grandmother’s comment is actually kind of silly. People in her generation also named their children after things, as names like Rose, Grace, Lily, etc. prove. Sounds more like she has a case of “it’s not a name I’ve encountered before. Therefore I have concluded it doesn’t count.”
Even i find the “finally! a *normal* name” comments about my daughter’s name to be irritating, and I prefer traditional English names as a rule. Like no-one ever named their kids odd things way back when. Besides. my daughter’s name is not normal for her age group. It’s a grandma name like Linda, Sandra, and Susan. (Because she’s named after her late grandma).
I’m going to sidestep your boyfriend’s sort of annoying declaration and say that I do wonder why certain nouns are clearly names (Rose) and other nouns are clearly not (Stapler). What about nouns in the middle (like Rock)?
Maybe we as a culture have decided that certain categories of timeless, pretty things like flowers and gems and virtues make good names but more modern things do not. But then why did everybody give Gwyneth Paltrow so much grief for Apple? Maybe you just generally get flak for being among the first to use any name, and noun names are particularly jarring because they are collections of letters and sounds that are already in use to represent something else.
Weirdly, I think Stapler is *this* close to becoming a Name name-If Wilder and Stapleton had a baby….
Rock Hudson!
(although it wasn’t his given name)
Kind of like Stone Philips (but it IS his real name). :)
I think Gwyneth Paltrow got flak about Apple since it’s a “food” word, which generally aren’t used as names. But then that brings back up who decides which categories of words are ok to use and which aren’t?
Basil and Rosemary?
And Olive!
From memory, the name Rose isn’t actually necessarily from the flower but may be connected to “hros” (or something like that) which means fame maybe? I was very keen on Rose a while ago until a relative ruined it for me. Lovely name though!
I notice all the examples given are female names (well, with the possible exception of Lethal Cashmere?). Does your boyfriend feel this way about male noun names, like Clay, Cliff, Reed, etc? I mean, not to have the conversation take a more reactionary tone (but OK, let’s do that), but if his concern is with female names like Hope or Rose, it smacks a bit of misogyny to me. It’s like he’s saying not only that those aren’t real names, but that actual people (women) who have those names are not real or they are not to be respected.
As Swistle said, obviously these are real names, so is he just baiting you? Why?
I heart swistle.
That is all.
Many names come from nouns. In pretty much every culture I’ve heard of. Esperanza, Tamar, Daisy, Seren, Cooper, Ariel, etc. Rosa Parks, Lily Allen, Rose McGowan, Grace Kelly, omg I can’t even with your BF right now.
I agree with Swistle. Either your boyfriend is picking a tedious argument for “fun’s” sake (whose fun?) or he’s avoiding a conversation/not taking it seriously because it makes him uncomfortable, or he isn’t ready, or he doesn’t find it interesting. In which case, saying “I don’t want to discuss baby names” is infinitely preferable to *blanket statement that is 100% false.*
When my husband and I were dating and not yet married, he would come up with ridiculous baby names. Like, really horrible, joke kinds of names. When we were seriously talking about names a few years later, he had a particular Bible character he wanted to name a son after. A Bible character who is strong but stupid… um, no. Fortunately, when given some time and then asked to really think about the story and whether or not he would have liked to been named that, he quickly dropped it. My despair passed, and I probably won’t have to email Swistle. :)
Let me guess….Samson? ;)
It’s not even ten AM but I am spoiling for an argument about stripper names! Let’s do this, homeboy!!!
-Every woman’s name, if you type it into google, will show pics of half naked young women. This is not a reflection on the particular name but the state of the internet. Try it. Try Gertrude. Try Gretchen. Try ANY FEMALE NAME. There will be a sexualized image of a woman, either making money or just enjoying being sexy. Or being exploited. STATE OF THE WORLD.
-So, declaring a name a “stripper name” is tantamount to saying “all the Roses I’ve met are strippers.” Which may be true. But when people say these words, it’s often spoken with a stunning lack of insight. Don’t get me wrong, my own husband has uttered the phrase now and again. I’ve uttered the phrase now and again. But we were being idiotic. I’m too embarrassed to list the names we condemned this way.
-If this is an actual discussion and not just a distraction tactic (avoiding the “should we have kids” talk), then I have a curriculum: The Baby Name Wizard, the Social Security names website, and the entire Swistle archive. Written by folks that understand the history of names in America.
-I do think baby girls are more often granted noun names, and more whimsical names in general. It’s been going on for quite a while. Some people see it as progress, others don’t. Go back a hundred years and you’ll find a lot fewer girl names being used. Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret, etc.
-Sometimes guys will be dismissive of vintage revival names as young men and then come around. I’m guessing y’all are younger than me (42 y/o). When we were picking names, guys my age would reject Lily for Heather or Shannon, names used in the 70s andn 80s. Because to dudes, those were girl names. I think the stripper-worldview somehow deprived them of any historical context for the vintage revival stuff.
Have fun!!!
I am giving you a high five for this whole comment. THANK YOU.
I often wish there were Like and Love buttons on this blog. Homeboy. <3
I love you.
Regarding the noun as a name issue, my name is Paige and one of the many reasons I dislike it is that it is also a thing. A Very Common Thing. My personal preference is against using common nouns as names, but again that is just my personal preference! Lots of people do not use that as a disqualification.
Swistle makes many excellent points about the boyfriend and his behavior.
Sideways to that larger issue, I love word names. I think it is because I like layers of meaning, and noun names give you at least the noun meaning and the named-person meaning; some also have multiple meanings and strong associations/connotations, and I like these best. For example, I love the name Laurel, which not only signifies a little girl who is beloved to me, but is also a subtly beautiful plant and has strong connotations of crowns, strength, achievement, and excellence. I also love the name May because the month connotes springtime and possibility, and I like the additional meanings of permission and potential. Word names also have the advantage of letting one be a little creative with the choice while still finding something easy to spell and pronounce.
My daughters are Bliss and Grace. Bliss is an ancestral family surname as well as having a nice meaning. Grace is another one where the word has so many positive meanings: the beautiful-physical-movement sense, the manners sense, the religious sense (we are not religious, but I think it is a beautiful concept), the visual-beauty sense, the doing-honor sense, the sense of being favored, and the sense of giving thanks. I love having all these layers of meaning in the name, even though of course I don’t think of them all most of the time when I’m calling her for dinner. I also like that both my daughters have names where the sounds are short and simple and the words easy to spell but the associations are deep. It strikes me that a lot of the most commonly used noun names are like that.
Bliss! That’s awesome. It’s my first time hearing that one and I love it.
He probably didn’t mean that word names are not names. Probably, he meant that to him they don’t sound like names, because he is much more used to associate them with the flower/virtue/etc they refer to, so for him, they couldn’t work as his children’s names.
Now, the “stripper name” thing does really bother me, because it has the power to ruin all the good associations you have with the name. My sister ruined the name Natasha for me (one of my very favorite names) because she called it a “stripper name” and now all I can picture when I hear it is a stripper, even though I still think it sounds beautifully and I know it is has a very positive meaning (related to Christmas). I feel for you, and I really don’t get why Rose, such an ancient, classic, poetic and romantic name, a name associated with the Virgin Mary (via the rosary) could be considered a stripper name.
Unless we are all very, very high. Bwaahaahaa.
I love me a cranky Swistle. I will admit I have biases against adjective names, like Wilder and Blue. But they are my biases, and I try to keep judgements to myself.
ALSO ALSO ALSO
Ok, I wrote this response today, but apparently it never posted? And I feel strongly enough about it that I want to write it again.
People need to STOP saying that “stripper names” are (a) a thing and (b) BAD.
Ok, sure, *I* don’t want to strip for money, but that does not make it Objectively Bad. I am not interested in telling other women what they can or cannot do with their bodies, and I’m not interested in participating in some kind of collective shaming over the choices women make that hurt NO ONE. Now, do I think we have a cultural problem, that stripping is basically just a women’s activity (specifically a cisgender women’s activity)? Yes. We definitely do. But that isn’t the fault of strippers!
So next time someone says “Oh, that sounds like a stripper’s name,” I’m going to say, “REALLY? That’s awesome! I really want my kid* to grow up to be someone who gets to make her own decisions about her body.”
*I was not the one to name my kid, so I really can’t take any credit or blame for her name.
* Also, no one has told my kid that her name is a “stripper name” as far as I know.
HUGE ROUND OF APPLAUSE
As someone who has a daughter that has actually made the decision to work in this capacity, I appreciate your comment SO MUCH. She does what she wants and only what she wants and feels empowered by her choices. As her mother- what more could I ask for her? *she also uses her ‘real’ name and no one had ever called it a stripper name that I know of…
Maybe we should start discounting men’s names in a similar way as sounding like “someone who would go to a strip club”?! It sounds so ridiculous! But why are the men who tuck in their children, kiss their wives, and go out to pay for women to take their clothes off for their own enjoyment exempt from judgment when the women who are just clocking in to MAKE A LIVING aren’t?
This reminds me of the person who tried to argue with me that there was no way to know if north was really north, it could be south! You know the funnn thing about language, some of the time something is what we say it is just because that’s what we say it is! There is no innate quality that connects the word “north” to north any more then says that Daisy is a name and Bullrush isn’t. So many eye rolls.